Israhellie company takes American tax money and poisons Americans

[yankeedoodle]

Israel's Energix Uses U.S. Tax Credits to Install Toxic Solar Panels in Virginia and Palestine
https://mailchi.mp/420f6325a182/israels-energix-uses-us-tax-credits-to-install-toxic-solar-panels-in-virginia-palestine-8114698?e=25e68a2f6e

Energix Renewable Energies, Ltd. is an Israeli company accustomed to building out its business on the back of huge subsidies. Overseas, the subsidies take the form of free or Israeli controlled foreign territory, solar and wind resources. In the U.S., Energix is absorbing tens of millions in federal solar energy tax credits. Unfortunately for populations neighboring Energix sites overseas and in Virginia, the Israeli company has contractually locked itself into using solar panels containing toxic heavy metals, rather than the mostly inert silicon panels used by 95 percent of the world.

Energix built its Meitarim solar utility in the Israeli occupied West Bank using 104,000 solar panels provided by the Arizona based company, First Solar.

In April 2019, Energix executed a series of agreements with First Solar for the purchase of panels totaling approximately USD 120 million for the years 2019-2021 for projects in the United States and in Israel. The primary reason for the purchase was locking in the maximum amount of U.S. solar energy tax credits. The solar energy investment tax credit was gradually to be reduced from 30 percent, at that time, to zero by 2022.

Energix declared in its financial statements that the First Solar panel order locked in the maximum rate as "systems in development." Energix clarified that, "It should be noted that in accordance with United States law, the purchase of equipment that is at least 5 percent of the cost of construction of any project by 2019 will allow that project to maintain the tax benefit rate of 30 percent (hereinafter: "ITC"), provided that the construction of the project is completed by 2023. Accordingly, due to this purchase, Energix has panels worth approximately USD 65 million that are expected to be used to maintain the ITC tax benefit rate of 30 percent."

In 2020, Energix converted investment tax credits into $48 million in cash with the help of its tax partner Morgan Stanley. Whatever revenue shortfalls are created by Energix subsidies will either be offset by American taxpayers or added to the ballooning budget deficit. Or, put another way, Americans are subsidizing the private profits and infrastructure buildout of an Israeli company operating in Israeli occupied territories. In 2020, Energix occupied slot number 32 on the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights list of companies profiting from Israel's illegal occupations.


Source: Department of Energy, IHS Markit 2020

One of the reasons Energix selected First Solar (est. 1999) as a key supplier is that the company exclusively manufactures cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar panels, which it claims are 21.5 percent more efficient than multi-crystalline silicon-based panels and cost less than $0.43-$0.46 per watt. According to the U.S. Department of Energy and HIS Markit, CdTe solar cells made up only about 5 percent of world production in 2020, which is dominated by crystalline silicon. One reason for this low market penetration is that unlike silicon, CdTe is a toxic heavy metal.

Several studies have shown that CdTe is toxic to mammalian cells and can cause severe pulmonary inflammation and fibrosis. Solar panels exposed to the elements over decades of solar generation are vulnerable. A study by the EU Ministry of Economic Affairs found that water can wash contaminants out of solar panels in a matter of months. Leaching also occurs when CdTe panels are sent to landfills, where one test found that "over the course of 30 days, 73 percent of the Cd and 21 percent of the Te were released."

The release of CdTe into the environment surrounding active solar utilities is not a purely hypothetical matter. In 2015, a single tornado destroyed 170,000 CdTe panels at the Desert Sunlight 550-megawatt facility in the Mojave Desert. Rather than building solar facilities in remote areas, Energix frequently locates its Virginia solar plants on prime agricultural lands and near residential areas and even close to major tourism and recreation facilities. Under Virginia state law, counties must give the final permitting approval for large scale solar utilities. Most counties have little regulatory guidance through local solar zoning laws or experience with large projects.

Fortunately for communities surrounding non-Energix solar sites, companies in the U.S. SunPower, Violet Power and Merlin Solar and other such companies, manufacture and supply competitive silicon solar panels. But manufacturers like SunPower, with its extensive commitment to UN human rights principles, would likely reject an operation like Energix, given its violations of international human rights and Israel's own plummeting human rights record.

Even as First Solar funds studies refuting potential harm from its panels, some Virginia jurisdictions remain unconvinced. In 2020, Prince George County altogether banned toxic heavy metals mandating, "All solar energy facility structures, racks and associated facilities shall have a non-reflective finish or appearance. Silicon based, or similar, panels shall be used; cadmium-based panels are prohibited." Spotsylvania County—without passing an outright ban—appeared to approve an Apex Energy site permit on the condition that the panels had to be silicon rather than CdTe panels purchased from First Solar.

Unfortunately, by the time Prince George County passed the regulation, the 20-megawatt Energix Rives Road site was already fully permitted. Most neighboring communities, in counties surrounding the estimated 20 sites in the Energix Virginia pipeline, do not ban CdTe or have much awareness about the issue. The Israeli company and its engineering and landowner partners continue to successfully—and mostly from behind the scenes—ram through permit applications to harvest the maximum amount federal tax credits and megawatts generated by installing the toxic solar panels that 95 percent of the world market rejects.

This IRmep Web Exclusive appears today at the Washington Report on MIddle East Affairs.  https://www.wrmea.org/web-exclusives/israels-energix-uses-u.s.-tax-credits-to-install-toxic-solar-panels-in-virginia-and-palestine.html

[yankeedoodle]

Virginia Rejects Israel's Energix CdTe Solar Farm Panels: Is First Solar the next Solyndra?
https://mailchi.mp/0b7144157245/virginia-rejects-israels-energix-cdte-solar-farm-panels-9810962?e=25e68a2f6e

Excerpt:

...First Solar's biggest challenge may be American county governments that determine whether solar utilities can obtain permits to operate in rural areas. The Israeli renewable energy company Energix, a UNHCR listed human rights violator that the Virginia Israel Advisory Board is incubating, committed to purchasing $120 million in First Solar panels prior to fully entering the Virginia market. Energix has also been the beneficiary of lavish federal support in the form of solar energy tax credits and PPP loans.

On September 27, 2022, the Caroline County Virginia board of supervisors shot down Energix's application for a permit to build a 12 megawatt solar utility on agricultural land. Although Energix representatives repeatedly insisted they "could" recycle panels under a confidential master services agreement with First Solar, the board of supervisors noted that Energix was simultaneously saying in other Virginia projects, such as Caden Energix Hickory LLC in Chesapeake, that partially degraded panels could instead be sold off to purchasers on Ebay.



Virginia's Louisa and Caroline counties require periodic water and soil testing at CdTe sites while four other Virginia counties now forbid CdTe panels.

Parikhit Sinha, Director of Sustainable Development at First Solar, in 2019 publicly testified that First Solar could recycle its CdTe panels at a cost of $10 to $15 per unit although there is no independent confirmation of his claim. First Solar's 2022 Sustainability Report reveals that the company is not yet capable of separating and refining out CdTe and must outsource the complex chemical breakdown process to third parties.

First Solar has not responded to multiple secondary market purchaser requests for recycling sent to the "recycling@firstsolar.com" email address listed on the back of its panels. It is highly likely that secondary owners of used panels will simply rip off the "non-household waste" labels affixed to the rear of the panels and dump the panels in the nearest landfill. This looming and unaccounted for e-waste bill, like Solyndra's comparative cost issue, could be First Solar's fatal comparative disadvantage.

In 2015, 200,000 CdTe panels at Desert Sunlight were shattered by the weakest category of tornado that ravaged the site, and they had to be trucked away and treated as toxic waste. The site operator and the Bureau of Land Management to this day refuse to publicly release the Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) report performed after the Mojave disaster.

At 8.8 million CdTe solar panels, the future recycling cost of Desert Sunlight could be $88-132 million according to the Sinha estimates. This is an unfunded cost that was likely never built into the project and that could be paid by the same US taxpayers originally tapped to pay for site construction. Similarly, if all proposed Energix projects were presently online, the unfunded future recycling cost could approach $24-$37 million. Again, to date, not a single First Solar recycling contract has been presented by Energix in its many public hearings before county stakeholders.

Because Solyndra was doomed by its uncompetitive high costs, First Solar appears to have learned it must completely externalize its high product lifecycle costs by saddling operators with responsibility for e-waste. Market analysts pin 2012 as the year First Solar made that decision. The total cost is not insignificant. According to Sinha, there are now 200 million First Solar CdTe panels installed, and no site has ever been fully decommissioned. Under his own cost estimates, that represents a $2-$3 billion unfunded liability that could be paid for by unsuspecting property tax payers situated in rural counties.

Counties across America may find out the hard way that many operators utilizing First Solar panels are limited liability companies (LLCs) that may simply walk away from their utilities in 20-30 years. That may leave county taxpayers and property owners who leased land to operators like Energix on the hook for millions in recycling costs.

This is a situation entirely created by First Solar. First Solar touts its heavy involvement in early stage operations and in management of solar utilities, often using its low cost of capital to take the initial direct financial stake and to set up the LLCs before it transfers off fully built out sites (and all liability) to thinly capitalized long-term operators.

Read and share this entire report, published today at Antiwar.com!  https://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2022/10/17/virginia-rejects-israels-energix-cdte-solar-farm-panels/